Parasite (The Domino Project Book 3)

by Hanna, K. T.

  “Really, Deign. That expression on your face isn’t making me feel sorry for you. I know you too well for you to try and get the best of me.” Bastian smiles, but it’s a sad expression. “So many times when you could have taken the high road, but you chose to slog through the mud and keep going in the same direction that eventually killed our parents.”

  Deign pulls herself up, her nose slightly in the air. “It’s only mud because traitors made it murky. Everything we’ve done has been to protect the people, like they couldn’t protect themselves.”

  If her voice hadn’t cracked on that last note, Dom might have even believed her.

  Bastian steps forward smoothly, almost like a glide, the heat glaze still emanating from him with an oddly dark shimmer to it. “Like they couldn’t protect themselves? You never gave them a chance.”

  “The initial testing showed the grid was the only option!” Deign’s cheeks are flushed and her eyes blaze. She stands tall, imposing in her rigidity. “They couldn’t handle a chance.”

  Bastian makes to move again, but Sai places a hand on his, tugging him gently. He glances at her, and for a brief moment, the shimmer of anger recedes slightly.

  Sai steps forward, her slender shoulders shaking with rage. It leaks out of her in ways that it shouldn’t be able to. Parasite or not, Sai’s power is usually contained. “You could have let them choose, you know. Helped those who didn’t want their powers by taking them away. Studying the actual origin instead of how people channeled it. If you’d, just for one moment, thought of the people as a whole instead of the stupid benefits and money that could be made…”

  Deign’s mouth curls into a sneer, and she looks down at the tiny, yet mighty figure Sai cuts. “You’re a child. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. When the Psionic Wars broke out, when the Shine ran rampant among those it shouldn’t have—”

  “I know! I know more than you what Shine does to those it wasn’t intended for.” Sai’s tone has changed, like she’s grinding stone in her teeth. “And I’m a thousand percent sure that making them accept what they were doing, making them content with it and go with it, was never in my parents’ best interests.”

  “Your parents?” Deign steps closer to Sai, and Dom sets himself on alert, watching carefully. “Your parents. You killed your parents, Sai. Blew them and a thousand other people up. You did that. We try to prevent those types of disasters.”

  Sai stops, gulps visibly, and her hands shake at her sides. She steps closer to Deign. Despite the height difference, Deign shrinks back. “If you’d just for one moment allowed the psionics who weren’t born into power the same respect you afforded those who were, we’d have known what we know now a long time ago.”

  “What we know now?” Deign asks, leaning a fraction closer to Sai.

  Sai smiles, but it’s tired and bittersweet. “That the powers we have are as alien as the adrium we use in every—”

  Deign snakes out a hand to touch her, but Sai’s reflexes haven’t been normal in a long while and she grabs the wrist before the woman can touch her armor. “Really, Deign? Now? Really?”

  She leans closer to the woman, and from the gasp Deign lets out, Sai doesn’t hold up on squeezing her arm. “If I never let Nimue close enough to touch me—someone I count as a friend, someone I care about—what on earth makes you think I would allow you to touch me?”

  A force whooshes out of Sai, so potent that Dom can feel it from where he stands five feet away. It hits Deign square in the chest, and the woman is lifted off her feet and dumped ceremoniously in the corner. “I don’t have patience for people like you.”

  The room is silent as Deign looks up at Bastian’s protégé with a murderous glare.

  “You realize we’re not leverage, don’t you?” Harlow speaks softly, standing relatively close to Bastian, whose own hands are clenched by his side. Dom can almost hear him grinding his teeth.

  “We know. But we needed to come here, needed to disband…” Sai waves a hand in the air theatrically. “…whatever this is.”

  Harlow frowns. “And you know Zach is a sneaky little git, right?”

  Dom glances over at Zach, who starts laughing. A strange surge passes through Dom’s aura, a darkness tinging his usual calm facade. He walks over to Zach and lifts him up by the collar of his shirt. “What?”

  “You don’t think we realized your central command is almost here? Did you really think we wouldn’t have a plan in place to disable you all before you got the jump on us?”

  Bastian’s punch is so fast, Dom doesn’t follow it until Zach is on the floor, nose bleeding, cackling hysterically. “Speak plainly.”

  Zach snorts and glares up through veiled eyes. “I should have outed you when I noticed two days ago.”

  Bastian picks the man up by his collar and shoves him roughly against the wall with a crack that could be chestbone or skull. He slaps his hand over Zach’s face while his other forearm holds him in place. Sai shies away with a gasp and Dom can feel the surge of psionics emanating from Bastian.

  Zach lets out an unholy scream of raw pain.

  Not one person goes to his aid as he writhes beneath Bastian’s iron hold. After several seconds, Sai recovers enough to lay a hand on Bastian’s arm, her own face ashen. Dom almost moves to stop her, but refrains because he needs to know if it’s true as soon as possible.

  “Bastian.” Sai’s tone is gentle, worried almost. “You’ve got enough. Don’t kill him.”

  Bastian looks over at her, abruptly removing his hold on Zach so the man slips to the ground, eyes staring vacantly, drool running down his chin. “He won’t die. Not for a long time. But he’ll be forced to think about everything he’s done for the rest of his life.”

  The words sink into the room, and most people take a step back. Not Dom, though, and not Sai.

  “Is he telling the truth?” Dom’s impatience makes the words clipped.

  Bastian nods and that’s all the sign Dom needs.

  “Have they moved in range yet? Can you reach them?” he asks Dael quietly

  Dael shakes their head, their eyes clouded. “Not right…” They pause. “Dom…they’re closer than we realized. They’re scrambling to head off the Damascus they can see coming from Central. Can you make it?”

  Dom glances around. Of course he can make it, but what about the rest of them? “Can you hold this without me?”

  “Without me?” Sai interjects, a scowl on her face. “You’re not going alone.”

  “You can’t phase fast enough to keep up with me.”

  “But I won’t be far behind.”

  “Fine! I just need to go.” The panic in his gut is making him reckless, lending fire to the parasite that’s gently sinking its claws in. He might have to find out what Dael meant after all—maybe it is necessary sometimes. “We have to make sure the device fires off.”

  Dael nods, and Bastian calls out. “Just go. We’ve got this.”

  “Joe is already there. He can call for us if you need us.”

  Dom nods once and takes off, Sai’s presence only a few steps behind him.

  Phasing is one of the fastest ways to travel as long as your stamina holds out, but it isn’t the most precise at high velocity. More than once he stumbles on a pass, barely avoiding a wall or a Damascus. He can hear Sai in his wake, falling slowly behind, but he knows she can take care of herself, even if it’s just to phase away from danger. Her greater obstacle is that the sun lingers just above the horizon.

  There’s no escaping it. They have to make sure the device fires. If it doesn’t, everything was for naught. Regardless of how well they can take out patrols, there are at least another fifty of the Damascus left. Their forces will be wasted by the time they manage to defeat them all—if they do. Just like the people they lost in PC 3. Just like Lambda, Iota, and Iria.

  Thoughts fly through his head as he darts in and out of buildings to reach the outskirts of town. Breaching the wall to get outside will trigger the alarms in Centra
l, but that doesn’t matter anymore. They have to trigger the device and save Mathur, Aishke, Kayde…all of Alpha. Dom shakes his head. It’s not about Mathur—just about the device. One person isn’t bigger than all the people they need to save.

  He can see the cloud of Damascus ahead of him, hear the beat of their feet as they run through the sand in the slowly fading sun’s light. It’s the perfect time of day, even for the Damascus.

  It’s not until he gets closer that Dom realizes they’ve been sent in two waves, and one of them has already arrived at Alpha. The nets flicker in and out of camouflage, partially pulled from the structure. All of the loading bays have been brought down and broken open, the Damascus scaling the sides. Some of them don’t make it, but most of them do. Their numbers and strength will eventually overwhelm those left to guard them.

  Why the hell hasn’t Mathur flipped the switch yet? Dom is frustrated by the lack of Damascus carnage in his wake. He moves ahead of the pack, phasing to the next step, and up into the Mobile. He scans around for people he knows and but only recognizes a couple of them. They’re too busy to acknowledge him, and right now he doesn’t have the time to stay and help them fight.

  For the first time since joining the Exiled, the way to the laboratory feels long. It takes far too much time, and the Damascus are too deep into the ship. Surely it’s still okay. Surely they haven’t succeeded yet.

  He pushes a soldier aside with his hand, sharpening it mid-push. The Damascus falls away from him, its head split in two, but still attached.

  Every few steps it seems he has another opponent. Damascus seem to leak out of parts of Alpha he didn’t even know existed. As he passes the central section, he notices the vegetable garden is shattered. Plants are ripped out and trellises reduced to twisted metal. The parasite rises up inside him, egging him to take his frustration out on the next unfortunate Hound to try and bite his face. So he does, but he keeps the darkness at bay, biting back at it, refusing to use the last vial he has, determined to gain control over his darker half.

  Being lethal is a good feeling. He has no reason to feel remorse for any of these deaths. They are not people and have no compassion for others. He can feel the parasite stirring again, angry at the tonic he took back in Owen’s lab. But he calms himself, while tugging gently on the power to give him more stamina, to push through. Use it wisely or lose himself. The former is the only option.

  All of the Exiled are the target. Kill or be killed. And this time Dom doesn’t let any of the Damascus get the better of him.

  He’s almost there, and he can see Joe fighting to get into the lab. They make eye contact briefly, each lost in their own slice of personal hell-mixed power.

  Wordlessly, they work in unison to down the Damascus clamoring to destroy Mathur and the device. If he focuses, Dom can hear their creator on the other side of the wall. Mathur is barricaded in, with two dominos helping him to keep the door closed and the Damascus out. The device lies behind them, forgotten but protected and hopefully still in one, huge piece.

  With a glance around, he takes three steps to the side, sharpens his fingers into points, and stabs them through the wall. With a solid yank, he tears it away, making room for Joe to join him in Mathur’s defense and give them a wider space to fight in.

  “The device.” His voice is quiet and yet it carries, magnified by the rage inside, by that need to kill. Except it’s not taking him over; it’s lingering at the edges, irritated, but seething with power, making sure he only harms their enemies.

  Mathur gasps at the sight of him, but nods a split second later and turns to the device. The bad thing about saying it out loud, though, is he alerted everyone else to it. Not only that, but they all see Mathur heading toward it.

  Time grinds to a halt. Dom can hear himself yell out to Joe as he tears the head off a lieutenant’s body, taking a punch in the side of his chest as he does. “Warn them. Cover!”

  Mathur’s hand reaches for the switch just as a Damascus rushes him in its own form of desperation, perhaps sensing impending doom.

  Dom can see it coming. He can see the blow and forecast the damage before it ever happens. Nothing he does, no matter how much he scrambles, will be enough.

  Dom watches as the soldier’s punch takes Mathur upside the head with an audible crunch. In a weirdly macabre sense of karma, it propels him the rest of the way to the device.

  “Take cover!” Dom’s voice carries over the whole Mobile as he phases to Mathur.

  Mathur hits the switch.

  The button strikes down with a resounding click.

  A second passes where nothing happens. And then the cascading explosion begins to roll, ripping the roof off Alpha, the support beams screaming.

  Sai chides herself for digging into her core just to try and keep up with Dom. Knowing the amount of damage her abilities are capable of—not only to herself, but to others—is eating at her mind. If only she were faster, she could catch up to him, be there with him, help him get to Mathur.

  What if she doesn’t make it in time? Their deaths will be at her door, too. Like so many others. They just keep piling up. They cannot fail. She has to reach them. Sai pushes more of her power into her phases to make it, make up for it…to be there.

  She picks her way through the debris field that was once the Mobile she called home and heads toward the source of the blast. Along the way, behind some of the walls, she sees people stirring. Injured and cut, but alive.

  Mathur’s laboratory is a wreck. As she approaches, she sees Joe picking himself up and notices the stub of an arm hanging limply at his side, black-red goo running sluggishly from it. She touches it as she passes and exerts a little bit of her will, just borrowing ever so slightly from her core, and slamming down a shield on it to avoid being sucked in.

  Damascus pieces are flung far and wide. Several dominos are scattered around, mostly whole, if not completely. And Dom lies huddled over in the corner with two pieces of jagged metal jutting out of his back.

  “Dom?” Sai can’t help the hitch in her throat. “Dom?!” Her hand reaches down to touch his shoulder, and it’s only then she realizes he’s on top of someone, cradling them.

  Slowly, Dom turns his face toward her, the human guise he wears leaking from him as his energy begins to ebb. The metal in his back is embedded deep enough that it’s probably taking all his effort to stay conscious.

  “I didn’t make it in time, Sai.”

  He sounds like a child, so far from the confident, protective Dom she knows. In his arms he cradles Mathur’s still form. The old man has a small smile on his face, much as he did in life, but that’s where the semblance ends. There’s a crack in his skull leaking blood all over Dom, while grey matter bulges at the air.

  She doesn’t know how to react, how to soothe him. She doesn’t even know how to soothe herself.

  As she leans forward, Dom clings to her with one arm, his strange true skin tone, so bright and metallic she can’t look directly at it, just like that first day she met him. But right now he doesn’t need to hear that. Right now he needs to her to be there.

  Right now she needs to focus on something other than the fact that Mathur is gone.

  She can hear movement behind them. Pieces of Damascus being dragged away. Dominos picking themselves and their missing or torn limbs up or dragging the dead away. Sai isn’t sure how long they sit there, but it’s long enough for Mathur’s body to cool.

  “Dom?” She taps his shoulder, but he shakes his head and bows it. “Dom, you need to move. We have to take those parts out of your back.”

  He blinks at her, not quite registering. “Parts?”

  “Let’s get Mathur onto the bench.”

  Dom nods wordlessly and follows suit.

  Sai pushes her fatigue to the back of her mind and stumbles to her feet. A hand grabs her elbow and helps guide her back to steadiness, and she looks down to see Aishke’s wan face next to her. They fling their arms around each other, sobbing in great gulps. It’s n
ot until Sai pulls back and studies her friend that she realizes the girl is bruised and limping. “I thought you’d be safe there.”

  Aishke shakes her head. “I told you I needed to come with you. I followed when you left.”

  “But you can’t phase.”

  Her friend smiles sadly. “No, but I can run.”

  Sai’s voice catches in her throat as she hugs Ash, and she glances at Dom. “He needs…”

  “It’s okay, Sai. I’ll patch him up again.” Garr’s voice is laced with sadness, an eternal tiredness that leaks through to Sai.

  She feels defensive because she knows how hard Dom tried to save Mathur. “He…phased so fast to get here. It…” And the tears won’t stop as she watches Mathur’s stiffening body. The blood is dry now, so stark against the man’s white hair. “I never even…”

  “Stop it.” Garr grabs her by the shoulders and gives her a gentle shake. “I need you to be able to help us. I’ve lost one of my dearest friends, Sai. Help me so we don’t lose yours, too.”

  Sai nods and focuses on the metal jutting from Dom’s back. It helps her not to look at Mathur—for now anyway.

  Garr’s tone is gentle as she guides them through the steps. “Help me remove these pieces. Damascus breastplates are sharp when they explode.”

  Sai nods, wondering how she would know that, and Dom braces himself as they pull the pieces out. He screams in pain or perhaps because of the loss. Maybe he just needed to scream. Sai wishes she could join him.

  His color starts to return immediately, slowly, and his eyes return to their normal silver, if a bit subdued. “We won?” He doesn’t sound happy about it.

  “Technically.” Sai sits next to him as Garr takes care of his back.

  “It’s not that bad this time, Dom. There are no pieces missing, just a clean cut. You’ll be fine by the end of the day. Just ask Sai to help you heal it a bit. The nerves in your back are hanging by a thread, and I don’t actually mean that as a joke.” The old woman seems old now, just like Sai feels.